Shelving.



.F. ARONSON.

SHELVING. APPLICATION FILED JULY 28,1913. RENEWED APR. 5. I9I5.

1,138,586. Patented May 4, 1915.

- 3109111 6 gfl wlnamv, 7 6w. 7pm.

FRANK ARQNSQN, GE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

SHELVING.

Specification of Letters latent.

- Application filed July 28, 1913, Serial No. 781,546. Renewed April 5, 1915. Serial No. 19,832. i

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FRANK AnoNsoN, a citizen of the United States, residingat Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Shelving, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to improvements in shelving and has for its general object to provide an improved knock down shelving structure of simple, strong, and durable con struction, which involves a minimum number of simple parts, and which may be erected and knocked down to suit changing con: ditions with minimum expenditure of time and labor and minimum deterioration of the component parts of the shelving.

In many places, as in large mail order houses, and the like, the constantly varying requirements for shelving space adapted to different commodities requires constant shifting and changing of the shelving, and the consequent destruction and rebuilding of shelving involves a serious item of expense both in the time requirement and in the deterioration of the lumber due to nailing the boards together and tearing them apart as well as the cutting of the boards to fit them together. i

In my improved shelving the shelf-supports are provided by simple and inexpensive metallic parts which may rapidly be assembled to provide any desired size and spacing of the shelves and on which the building up and interconnection of the shelves proper and division members may be readily effected.

In the drawings Figure 1 illustrates a typical construction embodying advantageous features of my invention, the shelving being shown in perspective with parts broken away, for clear disclosure. Fig. 2 is a detail of a frame member of connected parts; Fig. 3 is a perspective detail of a metal bin such as may be used in connection with my shelving support. 7

The supporting frame work consists of tubular uprights 1010 transversely connected by appropriate cross bars 11 to form a ladder like support, these cross bars carrying the shelves proper. Each upright 10 may be simply a piece of piping, preferably fitted at its bottom in a foot 12 and preferably the several alining posts of any longitudinally uninterrupted span may be connected at top and bottom priate number y metal stringer bars l3--13 although in most instances these are not necessary. Each of the bars 11 and 13 employed is flat at its ends, and preferably throughout its entire length, so that it may be made of fiat bar or strap-iron stock and each bar is secured to the posts, on which it is carried, by a U-bolt 14 having its yoke encompassing the post and its two ends projecting through suitable apertures in the bar to carry the nuts 15. p I

In general it is preferable that the shelving shall run of predetermined dimensions as to width of the shelves, and vertical spacing between shelves, as by having the shelving run in width of say two feet, two and a half feet, three feet and so on up to the maximum requirements and vertical spacing of the shelving to run in known units of say 6 inches, 9 inches, 12 inches, 18 inches and so on up to the greatest depth of bin required. The units of variation maybe made anything desired, but the building of shelving according to standard units facilitates the use of my invention by enabling a stock of cross bars of standard lengths ,to' be carried and the wooden parts, hereafter-mentioned, to be finished of proper sizes and kept in stock for simple assemblage.

For obvious convenience in a storage room most shelving takes the form of bins, each bin having a low front wall and the shelving being double faced or arranged with a partition dividing the stack in a longitudinal plane into two bins opening oppositely into corridors on opposite sides of the stack. Such construction I have particularly :shown in the drawings although it will be manifest that the simpler forms of shelvingwithout bins and without central partitions may be provided by mere elimination of the thensuperfiuous parts.

Having erected on theirbases an approof ladder like frame structures at longitudinally spaced intervals determined according to the weight to be can ried, I lay the shelf boards 16 for a couple of shelves, at the top and bottom of the stack-sayso that they occupy width of substantially half of the full width of the frame and then I erect against such shelves the central partition or back boards 17, which are simply stood on end with their lateral edges abutting to fill the space between eross bars 11 at opposite ends of the stack'and to rest fiatwise against the shelf boards already laid. The remaining shelf along the cross bars from post to post, trans ppositely opening shelves 4 in place snugly to fill the balspace on the cross bars in question, (usuaiiy after the clips hereafter referred to have been attached to the back boards By the filling in of the space versely of the stack, with the shelf boards, and the abutting of the extreme edges of the partitions or back boards 17 against the cross bars while their lower ends rest firmly on the floor, the vertical back boards are positiveiy positioned without any extraneous retaining devices Whatever, and when all of the shelves are laid the stack so constructed has a stability which makes it prac; tically unshakable, even without the use of any strii'igers 13 or fitted footings 12, it be-' ing practically impossible for stacks so erected to twist or sway n any direction, with even a reasonably close fitting of the boards.

It will be apparent that the back board 17 may simply be carried in stock all cut to a suitable length according to the ceiling height or desired maximum height of the shelvingand that as a rule no cutting or trimming of the back boards whatever will be necessary. Also except where special con-' struction has to be provided to meet irregular conditions the shelving boards may all run of substantially uniform length and width, or such variety of widths as will accominodatc the unit spacing for different desired widths of the stacks.

The bin front'boards or rails 19 are as a rule simply stood up against the inner faces of the posts and are secured in position by the compartment walls 20. These compartment walls may run of standard sizes com- .u cnsurate with the predetermined shelving dii eiisions, and for lightness, strength and resistance to Warping they are preferably made of slat construction as indicated at 20 with cleated ends 20*. Each compartment wall is preferably held at its rear edge by a U-shaped metal clip 21 screwed on to the back board 17 and each said wall may be secured at its front edge to the front rail of the bin by a single screw 22. I

For anchoring any of the longitudinally extending boards, particularly the front shelf boards 16 or the bin rails 19 against displacement I may employ simple U shaped straps 23 with their spreading feet screwed as in 24 to the appropriate wooden parts, and such precaution against accidental displacement I sometimes employ, although it is not essential. Also I use such straps for the bin-rail where there are no partitions dividing a long bin into compartments.

The compartment walls are usually put in place after the shelving is otherwise cor..- pleted, each such spacer being inserted into the compartment space, sleeved around to a slight angle and forced into the clip 21 and then straightened around to position and :-z 42. While the comsecured partinent wa not necessarily e tend the full height of the compartment it is preferable that they should do so, that each compartment wali may afford support to the shelf above itintermediate the ends of the shelf span and receiving the weight of such superimposed shelf may itself be the more firmly held in position.

As I have illustrated in Fig. 1 it is often desirable, to leave a passage as 26 through the shelving stack that the attendants may pass from corridor to corridor, and in such case the shelving may be carried along uninteri-uptedly above the height necessary to give head room so that the shelving may be run substantially uninterruptedly for any distance.

I prefer so to arrange the shelving that the ends of shelf boards will come substantially at cross bars 11, and wherever a iuecijing endwise of shelf boards is to be effected, I preferably provide a special construction shown to the left of Fig. 1 in which the ordinary straight cross bar 11 is supple mental with a second cross bar 11 deflected between the posts so that between its end portions it stands parallel to but spaced apart from the cross bar 11, the two bars being jointly connected to the posts 10 by the U-bolts 14s. In this way I secure bea ring surface for the contiguous ends of both boards and although not secured together the boards butting end to end have substan tially the effect of uninterrupted continuity.

\Vhere it is desired that the shelving shall be substantially fireproof it is feasible to use metal back boards 17 as shown 'to the right of Fig. 1, preferably made of corrugated,

and the shelves may if desired be made in the same way, but where fireproof construction is desired I prefer to form the bins as separable units shown in Fig. 3, each bin consisting of an open top box having portion of its front wall cut away to leave only the low rail 31 and having at its end walis integral hooks 32 each adapted to hang on the fiat bars 11 or to overlap the corresponding hooks of contiguous bins. I

It will be observed both of the wooden construction and the metallic construction heretofore described that the shelving is self-bracing and may be made so without the use of any nailing of the parts together,

or special cutting for interfitting of parts and further it will be observed that the strucagainst the restraint of the -l' olts and the better the grip upon the vertical posts.

\Vhile 1 have herein described in some detail a. particular emhmlimcnt ol my invention it will b. apparent to those skilled in the art that changes in detail might bemade \vithont departure from the spirit of my invention and within the scope of the ap pended claims.

Having described my invention what 1 claim is:

1. Shelving comprisingin combination vertical posts, fiat ended cross liars, U-holts connecting said bars to said posts, shelves extending lengthwise to span said cross liars, and transversely extending from position determined by the vertical posts to positions slightly-sqiarated intermediate said. posts,

and vertical back hoards effecting such in-.

termediate separation of the shelves said back boards at their opposite vertical edges contacting with the cross bars, and positioned wholly by the shelves and cross bars.

'2. shelving comprising in con'ihination vertial posts, lat ended cross bars, Uholts connecting said bars to said posts, shelves extending lengthwise to span said cross bars, and. transversely extending from position determined by the vertical posts to positions slightly-separated intermediate said posts, vertical. back hoards effecting such in termediate separation of the shelves, said hack hoards at their opposite vertical edges contacting with the cross lHU'S, and positioned holly by the shelves and cross bars, front rails extending along said shelves irside of the posts and compartment walls interposed between said front rails and back hoards.

3. Shelvingcomprising .coml'iinationvertical posts, llat ended cross hars, U-bolts connecting said bars to said posts, shelves'eX-' lending lengthwise to span said cross bars, and transversely extending from position determined by the vertical. posts to positions sliglitly-separated intermediate said posts, vertical hack hoards effecting such intermediate separation of the shelves, said hack hoards at-their opposite vertical edges contaeting with the cross bars, and positioned Wholly by the shelves and cross bars, front rails extending along said shelves inside of the posts, compartment \valls interposed between said front rails and'back hoards, and metal clips secured to said back boards and receiving the vertical edges of said compartment walls.

In testimony whereof I hereunto set my hand in the presence of two Witnesses.

Geo. T. MAY, Jr., MARY F. ALLEN. 

